Future  Perfect  Tense
by Garmonbozia
Summary: 7/13  The Tian Lu Quan:  When The Real World's Just Not Good Enough.  You'll Never Want To Leave!
1. Chapter 1

For those of you who haven't been following, I'm ankle-deep in frigid ocean, and I'm supposed to be enjoying a superbly childish and uplifting paddle with the wife. Except I'm not and I have no idea where I _actually_ am or how I got here.

But it's alright. There are ways to deal with this. There's protocol for these situations.

By way of an example, should you ever find yourself in an apparently perfect situation, in a landscape that seems to give back the very echo of your soul, think back to the last thing you remember from before. In that light, analyse how likely it is that you would have found this perfect situation. The last thing I remember is minor repairs, and another attempt to find the fifth moon of Gloriana, the known coordinates of which are very clearly wrong because it was the ninth attempt.

Rory saying, "I know where we should go."

Yeah, how likely is it that Rory brought me somewhere perfect and now is nowhere to be seen?

In addition, should one ever be faced with one's hearts desire, having previous been unaware that it _was_ one's heart's desire, do question where it came from. Just in case. Again, as a for instance, I had not yet admitted to myself quite how much I missed River, and here she is standing in front of me. Her beckoning hand falls limp to her side and she laughs, "What's the matter? Too cold for you, sweetie?"

I step back out of the water. And yes, when I look down my feet _look_ like they're dripping, but I can't feel that happening at all.

"Tell me something only River would know."

"You hate moths." Which rules out androids and shapeshifting aliens and other things that wouldn't have access to that kind of information.

"What have I ever taken from you?"

One eyebrow jumps almost to the hairline. "Do you really want me to answer that?" Which rules out Soul. Soul wouldn't have been able to resist telling me again how it used to have a body until I came along. _Come_ along; I haven't done it yet. 'Will come'? Am to have been in the future? Bloody time travel, I'll tell you, it does terrible things to language. Like, genuine _war crime_ things. If time travel were a person, language would have taken out a restraining order by now.

Which gives me an idea.

"River, define the future perfect tense."

She sighs, walking forward out the water. Falls down on the sand and stretches out. "Look, the sun's coming out, don't let's be grown ups now."

"And we won't. I promise you." I say that before I lie down next to her. Harder to lie when she's close. Real or not, she takes that from me. "But this one question."

Pouting, curling up against me, "It's a really weird question." I slip a hand under her arm and tickle her ribs until she giggles, "The future perfect tense exists in certain Latin-root languages to describe actions which will be completed at a known point in the future. Literary, journalistic, largely obsolete, _stop it_!"

I stop. And she seems to think that it, that we're not being grown-ups anymore now. That we're going to have a lazy afternoon on the shore and not think about anything terrible. That would be nice. Only I'm not entirely happy with her definition.

"Obsolete, River?"

"Mmh. Mostly abandoned in the colloquial, _why_ are we discussing the finer points of French grammar?"

Feeling around in my jacket, because the sonic should still be there. Because that should help. "Because don't you wish sometimes we had a tense for the future perfect? Don't you ever wonder why the water out there didn't get any deeper when you walked farther out than me? Why your feet are dry?"

"No." A perfectly honest and limpid answer, with nothing behind it. No arch innuendo, no ulterior motive, not misleading or misguiding in anyway. No fun. I keep searching for the sonic. "Oh, you don't have it."

"Yes I do."

"No. You left it behind in case it fell in the sea."

"Ridiculous. It won't work, you know."

"What won't?"  
>"Tricking me into not believing in it. It's here."<p>

Part of me knows it is. Can feel it even, the familiar shape of the grip. Just can't quite close my fingers on it. So I picture it, as clearly and precisely as I can. Down to the little scratch on one of the top claws from when it was stolen by the owls, the poison burn on the barrel from Alaya's tongue. And a slight grease stain at the bottom. From what? From butter. From this morning, from toast, with Jessica. Jessica. Where is Jessica?

The sonic becomes real again in my grasp.

I lean away from River and point it out to sea. About a foot beyond the tide the world turns transparent and reveals a wall painted in dull industrial taupe. One reading given; Tian Lu Quan.

Literally, 'Heaven Hotel'. In reality, anything but. Each room feeds off the mind of the occupant. Intelligent psychic programming. Small corners of hell so personal and perfect that you'll lie there forever, that you'll waste away your real life to stay there. If you fall for it, that is.

"Aha! I _knew_ you had to be a figment of my imagination, you were far too honest."

But River doesn't hear me. She's staring into the horizon, where the wall was a second ago. "What was that? Where are we?" Wrong. All wrong. She shouldn't be confused. If she's a projection of my image of River, and I know her to be false, then she should be crumbling by now. So for the moment I ignore her, and I turn a slow circle with the sonic, looking for the door. "Normally you answer me while you do that."

"Heaven," is as much as I'm willing to tell her.

She gasps, "The Tian Lu Quan," and rushes up to me. Rolls up the sleeve of my jacket and pinches my wrist so I cry out. "How are you real?"

"How are _you_ real? I'm imagining you!"

"_I'm imagining you_!"

Right. So at least I've got River then. The logic might be up the left and backward, but at least I've got River. Because the trick to the Heaven Hotel is keeping your head on straight, and heaven knows River's always such a wonderful help when it comes to keeping my head on straight.

I find the door, or at least the suggestion of it. Four lines making a rectangle in the wall, and with a small black glass panel. Seems to be about as close as we're getting. A little shift in the frequency aimed at the black glass breaks the illusion. The chalk cliffs, the ocean, the sun in the sky, they all disappear. Four taupe walls, two plastic chairs, grey industrial carpet.

"I miss the beach," River sighs. I could nod, could agree, but I'm concentrating on the door. Because the sonic is doing what it does, but not what it should do, and it's not opening. A moment later, River is leaning on my shoulder, her face right next to mine. "It's a psychic lock. You need to think the right passkey."

"Who set it, though? That's the question; who put us here?"

River ignores the question. River is behind me, breaking the leg off one of the chairs, and running it at the black glass so fast I only just get out of the way.

Spark, fizzle, all the usual. Then that horrible, held-breath moment where it's either going to open or we're entombed here forever without even the distraction of the beach. Somewhere in that moment, River's hand weaves itself into mine. It unweaves again when the door hisses and slips an inch backward.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

"You ever seen the inside of the Tian Lu Quan?" I ask her.

"No," she says right back. Both of us looking at the door, but her eyes shoot to me.

"Oh, no, darling, after _you_."

She walks up the door, to shove it sideways, to leave ahead of me. I watch her go those few steps. And yes, yes, I miss the beach.


	2. Chapter 2

River takes one step out of the room, and hops right back in, pulling the door with her. "Someone's coming," she hisses. Leans forward to peer through the tiny crack she's left herself, and room above her head for me to watch too.

The figure approaching wears a dull navy jumpsuit and a blank expression, and a set of keys at his waist. An Attendant, the jailers of the Tian Lu Quan, and immune to the especial talents of this place. The Tian Lu Quan operates on the thoughts and feelings of those held there, their fears and desires. The Attendants, through medication and conditioning, have none of these.

"I thought they were a myth," River breathes and I cover her mouth. Just because the Attendant could never _want_ to kill us doesn't mean he wouldn't. Impossible, motiveless murder is in their make-up.

Oh… Oh, that's horrible…

I'm sorry, I just thought of Jessica and now I feel mean.

The Attendant passes without noticing the opened door. He doesn't _want_ to. If we walked into him, if he spotted us, we'd be dead on the vine, but as it is he has no desire to make his life difficult.

"When do they make these places illegal?" River asks.

"The moment they find out about them," I tell her. Now I know we might be being watched, I'm more willing to go first. Slide the door back a little more gently than she did and look left and right before I decide to let her out. And I almost don't. The interior of the Heaven Hotel is, once again, anything but. Much seedier than I imagine heaven probably is, for starters. The pine green walls could use a lick of paint, and the red carpet is worn old and threadbare in the tracks of the Attendants' rounds. Of four lightbulbs on the hallway out there, two of them are working. Eventually, River moves me out of her way and steps past.

"Oh, don't be such a little girl," she smiles, "We've slept in worse."

"_Have_ we?"  
>"Haven't we? Where are you coming from? Have we been to Spanakta yet? There's a dock there, and-"<p>

"Oh, God, River, keep that one for a surprise, why don't you…"

"Of course. So where to, my love?"

"Find your parents, find Jessica, find Tardis, exeunt into wild blue yonder, alright?"

"Capital. Reception, then?"

"Well, I don't see a house phone, do you?"

Asking at Reception is easier said than done. A hotel designed to kill with kindness does not take kindly to the guests wandering around alive. Not to mention that room numbers here are amongst the most closely guarded secrets in the universe. Another one of the myths River had heard, and one which thankfully proves less real than the Attendants, is that the only person who knows all the room numbers is a person with no tongue and no hands.

He's not. The concierge, however, has thoughts and feelings and therefore can't leave the reception desk. He sees us coming, and tries to shout for an attendant. River is across the room in the time it takes him to breathe in. She puts her hand on his chin and tips his head so far back I can see every little bristle on his throat sticking out. He holds her eye, and starts reaching one of his perfectly existent hands under the desk.

"Um… darling?"

"Yeah, I've got it." She does and all. She puts one knee up on the desk, for the extra reach, and leans over, taking the gun out for him. An old-fashioned revolver, and she straightens it in her hand and cocks it. "Oh, yes, that's _much_ better." True; River looks complete, in a way, armed and provocatively posed. Not saying she suits her psychopathology. That would be a cruel thing to say. Not a thing I would ever say.

"Only don't shoot anybody, there's a good girl."

River twists to look at me over her shoulder. "Why would I do that? He's going to be nice and tell me everything we need to know, aren't you, my darling?" Now, I don't see anything, but River is still holding very tight to his jaw, so I trust her judgement when her expression turns sour and she says, "Are you trying to shake your head? You are, aren't you?" She tosses the gun over in her hand, catching it by the barrel, then clunks him with the butt. "Silly boy. Why would you want to get shot over a couple of silly numbers?"

River gives him enough slack to say, "I don't know the room numbers."

I intend to stay in her sight line, so I'm moving round behind the desk. Her eyes follow me. "If I say 'pretty please', am I allowed to shoot him?"

"No."  
>"Pretty please?"<p>

"No. You may, however, hit him again if it pleases you." I'm not condoning violence, I'm taking care of my wife, and trying to take care of my friends. Lesser of two evils, means to an end, there are any number of clichés, you can take your pick.

But while River is at work, and doing a job she loves and is very good at, I lean back against the wood-panelled wall. A particular shade called Mexican pine which I am assured was insanely popular once, but I keep managing to miss the fad. Can't say I'm overly upset about that. One thing I'll say for it, it reverberates. It can carry a tune, I'll tell you.

And the tune through this particular panel rings out in perfect harmony with the one River's singing.

The language is different. What with the Tardis translating everything, wherever the dear girl is, it makes it difficult to tell which. Scottish or Irish or Welsh, something with sharp vowels and soft consonants.

Beyond that panel, someone who knows much more than the concierge is being beaten with much less mercy and being asked the same question though not half as sweetly. Whoever is in there is not saying pretty please, that's for sure.

"River, ask your friend who's secret office this is behind me. Hidden in the wall."

"The manager!" he gasps, suddenly and with a slight gurgling noise beneath it. Glad to finally be able to give something up. All it gets him is another lump on the head, River berating him for being so quick to answer me and holding out on her.

I wish she'd shut up, though; I'm already trying to do two things at once. I need to listen in on the heavily-accented conversation in the manager's office, and all the while the sonic is humming away while I look for the lock of the hidden door.

The accented gentleman, by the way, the one doing the beating, he's looking for some real or metaphorical sister. Keeps asking for 'the sister'.

"Listen, mister," the Manager is saying. Apparently much more willing to compromise his establishment than the staff are. "I don't know your sister. We've only got two rooms occupied. Here! See?" I don't know what the Manager is showing his attacker, but I imagine a great wall of keys with only two little gaps on it. "Seventeen and forty-two!"

He's asking about his sister again, and I'm out of time.

"Sweetie, for one, that's a wall, and for another, it's wood."

"It's a _door_, River, and it's only wood on the outside, and _ask your friend_ where the lock is."

"Psychic lock." They answer in unison. From River, it's a question, highlighting my stupidity in not noticing this. From the Concierge, it's one last cry of desperation, and it leaves a fine bloody spray on the front of River's blouse. For which she hits him again, rather defeating the purpose, but since we don't need him anymore it doesn't matter.

The psychic lock is up on the lintel, positioned to read from the brainstem and not the more complex frontal cortex. Triggered by the most basic thoughts and emotions. So I reset it and imagine myself comfortably into the emotion of recently disappointed self-righteousness. Let's see them think of that one within the three days.

"Put him down, River."

"But the _numbers_!" she whines, and pouts. I take her by the arms and ease her down off the desk. Then, for my own safety as much as anybody else's, I take the revolver from her and pocket it. "Oh, don't tell me you got the numbers. You couldn't even get the _door_ open!"

"I wasn't opening it, I was closing it and yes, I got the numbers. I know, I'm impressive. You want to swoon now, River, don't you? That's understandable. I only ask you fall onto my right arm so I don't have to suspect you of reaching for the gun in my left-hand pocket. You may swoon now."

She doesn't. They never do. It so rarely works I've all but given up on it. But River's my wife and she looked impressed. The fates, it seemed, were with me. Alas, I was misled.

Instead she says again, "Where to, my love?"

I send her to room forty-two. She hasn't been back to prison in a while and I'm sure she misses the old cell. And she wouldn't swoon.


	3. Chapter 3

Normally, in a situation like this with reality being a relative concept and mental states being the order of the day, I wouldn't advise splitting up. One must hold on to the things one knows to be real; they make the rest look pale and fake. Less sentimentally put, they show up the fractals, those little lines where yes and no meet. The little haze on a bad perception filter or a flicker of indecision in psychic paper. You need real things around to bounce the fake off.

That's why I sent her away.

It doesn't make sense, that River following me out. Being in that room before me and me not being aware of her. The more I think about it the more certain I become that the River who has been with me is the production of the Tian Lu Quan. Told you that would happen, didn't I? Me sending her packing. She won't come back. Now that she's gone I'll forget about her. Whatever residual influence the place is having on me, and that's the only explanation I can think of currently, it ought to fade with her. Well… maybe once I've apologized to the concierge.

I'm still headed to room seventeen. The sooner I break them out, the easier it will be for them to leave behind their respective heavens. There is one small problem, however. Allow me to relate to you the numbers of the rooms on this corridor: seven, eighty-two, fourteen, fifteen, sixty-four and twelve.

So where the hell is seventeen, then? Or forty-two for that matter, I'll take what comes. There's no mathematical reasoning to it, I've checked. Just another line of defence between the captives and freedom.

The shadow of an Attendant falls around the corner. I duck into the nearest open room and pull the door as close to closed as I dare. Behind me, there's a whisper of water on sand, the salt scent and warm sun, and a voice that calls me on. And the last thing I should do is close my eyes, so I press one to the crack at the door and the other loses everything in the doorpost. The beach isn't real. The Attendant, unfortunately, is. This is a door. I am holding onto a door. I am watching an Attendant in the seedy hallway of the Tian Lu Quan whether I want it or not.

He's writing something down. Making a note on a clipboard. And I'm willing to bet it has something to do with his rounds. Rounds which only include two rooms. One of them, then, is around here somewhere. But how will I find the other afterward? Quickly, as he walks away, I scan him for any electrical signal I might be able to lock onto.

There's one. Disconcertingly, it would appear to be a small implant in the brainstem. That, then, must be how they switch off the thoughts and desires of the workers, the myth that River had heard about. She hears a great many myths, you know, I think it's how she finds me sometimes and she's the last, the _last_ thing I should be thinking of, isn't she?

A hand on my shoulder. The lightest touch, long strong fingers. Not a word said. I hold my breath until the Attendant turns the corner, and don't look down at the black glass panel, because there's bound to be some reflection of her there, then push free, away. I close the door without turning, without looking back. Hades and the Tian Lu Quan; the two places you can lose it all by looking back.

Free now, I run the way the Attendant's just come. Then I freeze.

Room Seventeen belongs to the Ponds. I know this, and would have known the room even without the clue. There in the hallway, floating upward from a deep blue weight, is a gold balloon with the words 'Do Not Disturb' printed on it in black.

Lovely. Now I get to be _that_ person again. Bunk bed person. Stupid bloody bunk bed person. The relative coolness of bunk beds nonwithstanding, that's not what we're disputing here so much as their usefulness and how conducive they are to certain situations, much like the one I may or may not be rambling to distract myself from and I am, aren't I?

Alright, deep breath time. Steel myself and rap most firmly at the door. "Ponds! Now I'm terribly sorry to interrupt but-"

That is precisely what I say. Apparently, though, they hear something different. All full of the pain and rage of embarrassment, I hear Rory seething back at me, "Oh my _God_, Dad, go _away_!" And from somewhere else in there a muffled Amy giggling.

"Rory?" I yelp, then pause to bring my voice down by an octave. "Now _listen_, you two, very carefully, I am _nobody's_ father and you're both in grave danger and-"

"I'm twenty-two, Dad, you can't _threaten_ me anymore!

"_I'm not your Dad_!"

A bit louder and stronger than perhaps I should have said it; that one appears to get through. There's a scrabbling inside the room, voices hushed in shocked discussion. Moments later, the door that would not move for me is suddenly flung open, and there stands Rory, clutching at nothing around his waist where he very probably thinks there are sheets.

"What do you mean you're not my… Doctor, you're the Doctor and I'm… I'm really naked…" I have not looked anywhere into the room but somewhere Amy yelps, his realization triggering hers.

I'm trying to turn away and cover my eyes at the same time, so I don't have a hand to keep the door open when he slams the door again. Thankfully, my jacket catches in it, sparing me the trouble of having to go through that again. I explain, while they cast about for their cast offs inside, where they are, that they must pay no attention to the world within, no matter how tempting it might seem.

They're not listening though.

"Wait a minute," I hear Amy say, after a while, "_Why_ are we getting dressed again?"

"I don't know, it seemed really important a minute ago."

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" I cry, and throw the door open, and sonic the last of the illusion out of the corners of the room. "Because I'm here, because none of it's real, because it all seems so real and lovely you'll never want to leave it, not even to eat, am I _ringing_ any bells here?"

They stare at me. Rory tugs the ruches of his t-shirt down over his belly, and Amy is trying very hard to smooth down her hair at the back. Blank faces, utterly without recollection. So I step out of the doorway and usher them through. Half of my mind takes out the sonic and begins to trace the signal from the Attendant. The other half pulls gently at the tangles in Amy's hair.

"Before anybody begins, I have no desire to know what went on and I require no explanation – wait," and here I stop, and turn on my heel to make sure, "Where did the balloon go?"

"What balloon?" It's nice to have Amy back to being confused, it takes the look of intense shame off her face.

"There was a balloon, a big 'Do Not Disturb' balloon, and I can read, only I had to disturb, unfortunately, but there was a balloon and now there's no balloon." No little weight either, no pretty red ribbon. No gold balloon.

Neither of them has anything to say, and so they say nothing. There are other things to think about, though. Gently shepherding them along I briefly explain _again_ about the Tian Lu Quan. That's the thing about River, you see, she always has an idea about these things, you don't have to lay everything out of her, she's already heard it and she is _still_ the last person I should be thinking of.

"But…" Rory begins, the moment I finish, as is his wont, "I don't remember us being put in a room. How did we _get_ here?"

I take them by the outside shoulders so that they turn inward, and I lean close to Rory, make sure I'm looking him dead in the eye. Because Rory had had this great idea about where we should go, hadn't he? "Good question," I say to him, "how _did_ we get here?"

He goes all wide-eyed and trembly and leans as far back as I can allow. "I asked you that, Doctor."

"Course you did. Because it's a good question and you have great faith in my knowing things and stuff and answers. But that one I don't know. I do know Jessica's in room forty-two, though, and that we have to go," checking the sonic, "_that_ way to get there." But as I step back from between them I notice that they've met each other's eyes and now they're lingering with it.

I'd tell them to get a room, but it wouldn't be the best idea I've ever put forward.


	4. Chapter 4

After the first minute or so of banging on the door at Room Forty-Two, the Ponds and I stand back to rethink. This shouldn't be happening. Jessica's not deaf anymore, and that's been enough of a pain without having to go back to sign language now. Even if she _had_ heard us, we wouldn't necessarily know. Jessicavoice is still the most elusive sound of all.

"Are you sure this is the right room, Doctor?"

Well, no, Pond, not really, since I overheard it behind tortured out of the Manager through a wall I probably couldn't find my way back to without ever actually seeing any of it for myself. But as to the numbers given by that man, "Yes."

Theoretically, this is the part where Rory says, 'Wait a minute', just prior to coming off with a superficially stupid comment which nonetheless leads to a viable theory. I'm waiting. Rory, however, is stretching a crick out of his neck, in apparently every direction but the useful one. I am left to arrive at the viable theory part, without the trigger.

"When I spoke to you two through the door, you didn't hear what I was saying. You heard things that were compatible with your… what was going on within. So what's Jessica hearing?"

No reply. Each of us aware, to a greater or lesser extent, that the girl's life to date has been composed of various shades of fear, and realizing how we probably came across just now.

"And you were able to open the door of your room… because you truly wanted to. You wanted to hold me accountable for not being your real father, and _Heavens_, no, you haven't heard the end of that. Why would Jessica _want_ to leave now, considering what she must think is out here?"

"Doctor, are you still talking to us or are you coaxing that door?"

'Shut up, Pond; I'm thinking.' That's what I want to say, but I don't, because I'm being careful, taking care to be careful to take care of the people I care about. I _know_ I'm talking to the door, because I'm thinking about it, about all the kinds of locks I've seen around her and all the things that make sense and don't. River, who I shouldn't be thinking about and who wasn't even real, told me about psychic passkeys.

You have to think the right passkey. I know those, I've got those in some of the old or special parts of the Tardis. Then River stabbed the aforementioned lock with a chair leg and… and the two of us held our breath and each other, not knowing what was going to happen. Not knowing. Apprehension, fear of the unknown, that's what got us out of that room. And the confusion of having one's world torn down freed the Ponds. It has to be a feeling which isn't all that likely to occur. But that's all been from the inside.

I'm trying to think about it, but nobody interrupts, nobody's dropping the uncut diamonds of daft human wisdom for me to polish up. Nobody's saying much at all. Pond keeps asking Mr Pond if he's alright. Still stretching his neck, you see. And this final time she asks he finally hears her. His answer is a single cough of mirthless laughter, and a crackle of bones from right down the spine.

"Yeah, much better now, thanks."

"Rory?" Pond asks, wary. I can feel her stepping away. I straighten and put a hand on her shoulder, to let her know that I hear it too; the slight difference, in his attitude if not his actual tone.

"It's the Attendants, by the way," he says, apparently unaware of our unease, or ignoring it. "They set the locks from outside." Amy asks him how he knows that, and he ignores her. Looking straight at me. Smiling in a terse, snide little way that Rory doesn't smile. "It's a riddle, Doctor. If you'd just lugged Jessica into a room and you needed some little thought, any little thought at all, to lock her in with, what would be on your mind? Your thoughtless, unemotional mind."

"_Rory_!"

"It's alright, Amy, he means the Attendants."

"What's an Attendant?" she balks, but Rory's small, nasty smile splits into a more important grin.

"I didn't, actually."

"Are you alright there, Rory?"

"Alright, Doctor. Why wouldn't I be alright? You tell me, you're the Doctor."

"Only you don't sound alright. And how's that neck working out for you, by the way?"

He gives a disgusted little sigh and rolls it again, massaging the vertebrae with one hand. "Necks are weird," he grumbles. Pond is about to say something. I tug the back of her jumper to keep her with me. She nods and stays quiet. I, meanwhile, am positioning myself in front of the door, and my mind is cycling through all the thoughts I might have had about Jessica when we first met had she not been trying to kill me and were I not, to put it bluntly, scared out of my socks. Rory breaks off in the middle of another roll of the head and points very suddenly at me. "Yeah! That one!" I open my mouth to articulate the last thought I had and he shakes his head. "No, go back a couple. Sorry, I was yawning, and _yes_, that there. Try that."

'Blue' was the thought. The electric blue eyes beyond the mask, the same steely shade as her stakes, only brighter. So I think very, very hard about the colour blue. Nothing happens. Rory rolls his eyes and moves me out of the way, steps under the lock himself. "You're _so_ vain. Wrong shade entirely, Doctor." Somewhere in the background, Amy wants to know how he knows what I'm thinking. Which is a fair question. She knows she's supposed to stand back, the way I am, but it's much easier said than done for her. "It am having _lightning_ eyes," he says. Jessica-ese, her own special grammar, and Rory, out of respect, would never mock it. "Him am thinking that about it first-mask-times."

And he can be horrible about it if he wants, but it works. The door hisses out from the wall, forward from flush. Believing that her voice will be covered by the nose, Pond tugs me close and asks fearfully, "Doctor, what's going on?"  
>"Oh, yes, Doctor, tell her what's going on!" Rory cries out loud. Something mad about him, all waving arms and toothy grin. Leans right up close to her, into her face until I pull her back against me. "Save us, Doctor! Solve it all away! Deliver us! That's why you're here, isn't it?" Pond steps up and slaps him, hard across the face. Rory puts a hand to his face and laughs his way through a series of little ows.<p>

"What are you?" Pond hisses, but he's not listening.

"So that's what that feels like," he murmurs. But with his other hand he's pushing back the door on Jessica's room. "Lady and gent, your princess in the tower."

Jessica is sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room, with her hands over her eyes. She hasn't stopped believing yet and doesn't want to. I have Pond pull the door over behind me so we can see what she sees.

A bare white room. And Jessica thinks she's sitting cross-legged on my chair. There's a hard, bare bed, and a wall of some kind of clear plastic with a blue light through it and written on all over in her uneven handwriting. Little drawings too, crude as cave paintings and just as meaningful. There's a little cube of a bathroom on my right, as sparse and Spartan as the rest except there's a bath run in there, steaming hot and reeking of jasmine. Not a pleasant smell to me, but something about it is Jessica's idea of heaven.

Everywhere, blue swamp orchids.

On the floor in front of her, a tray of hot buttered toast, and a bag of strawberry laces.

"Is this it?" Pond breathes to me.

"Most she's ever had, I suppose."

"Oh, God, world's smallest violin!" Rory balks out, suddenly loud, shocking Jessica bolt straight. She covers her ears, hard, a way it took us three days to get her to stop, whimpering.

That's why she didn't hear us. Here, in her room, in Heaven, there was no sound.

"Okay," Pond says, through gritted teeth, "this is _actually_ worse than the last hotel you brought us to. And I nearly lost my soul to a minotaur in that one." As the punctuation mark to this sentiment, with which I cannot help but agree, she spins on her heel and this time swings a vicious right hook right into Rory's jaw. This time he falls. "And when I ask something in the body of _my_ husband what the _hell_ it is, I get an answer, is that understood?"

I want to explain to her. I want to spare her all this pain of not knowing and not getting an answer, but Jessica needs me too. I gave her my hand and now she's not letting go of it. Not letting me pull her up, though, holding me towards her. 'Let's just stay here,' without words, 'you and me.'

Stretching a crackle out of his jaw, Rory grumbles, "Now that wasn't so much fun as the slap, I'm not so enamoured with that, no, let's not do that again." Climbing back to his feet, and losing them once or twice like he doesn't know he has them, "You want answers, gorgeous?" This time, while one hand is opening the door, the other wraps around her waist and pulls her in to kiss her. When Pond shoves him off he throws her away and step back through the door, throwing the hallway light over Jessica. "Let the sunshine in, Ghostie! Time you got out of this room, long last."

I have to help Jessica to her feet as the room wears off, clearing the last with the sonic. She looks confused, and wounded, but not half as badly shaken as Pond. I lead them both back into the hall.

Where River is waiting.

Suppose I was wrong about her not coming back. You will, however, forgive me for not guessing she might return in a black fitted suit with an eye-drive on and a small entourage of Silents. I can tell from her trembling that Amy wants to scream, or cry or something like it.

And Rory is standing a few feet ahead of us, in between. Throws back his head and arms and laughs at the ceiling. "Told you I'd bring the whole set!" and he swings a low, dramatic bow to River. Looks up without standing up, "Now can I get a lift home with you, please, Madame Song?"


	5. Chapter 5

"River? But… But _no_, you were here before and you were imaginary and everything was perfect and we were paddling but nothing was wet."

A moment's silence. Most of the gathered are probably trying to work out what I just said. That's alright; I'm trying to work that out too. Made sense at the time, but not anymore. Rory gets there first. Never really heard him giggle before. I still haven't. I keep reminding myself it's not him, not really, but Soul. "Too much information, Doctor." Soul just about manages this through the laughter, doubling over.

Soul. Dear, vicious Soul, key proponent of Question Roulette as a recreational activity, sweet little body-hopper with, unfortunately, no neck to wring. Not that I was considering that.

I wasn't. I've told you before about those looks.

"Soul," River snaps. "That's one of my parents you're standing in."

Soul straightens Rory up, coughs out the last of the laughter, and clears his throat. "Sorry, Madame Song. Quite right too. Open sesame and I'll come in from the cold."

Pond, before I can stop her, charges up and taps Soul on Rory's shoulder. And as Soul turns him round, she brings her fist up a second time. It happens too quick to warn her, but in the moments between her swinging and the punch connecting, Soul vacates. I see the little shudder, the little flutter of River's eyelashes, as it jumps in at the passenger side, while Rory is staggered against the wall, coming to grips with the fact that his face hurts. Amy punched him twice; that's the thought that seems to have stuck with him. He articulates that several times.

I put them behind me, with Jessica, who keeps leaning in at the door of her former room, sniffing for jasmine and strawberry laces. All of it heartbreaking, all of it needing my help and guidance. Just not right at this instance because, "We were on a beach!"

"I know," she says, with a simpering smile, this _Madame_ Song, this _not _-wife of mine. "And wasn't it wonderful? Over now, though."

"No, no-no-no-no-no, you helped me get out of that room, now why would you-"

"Because I needed you to get mummy and daddy so Soul could get Jessica."

"No-no-no-no-no, but if you were really with the Silence this whole time, you would have-"

"Your death would not serve us today. We are content for you to walk away. This time." I won't lie to you, it turns me cold. In a real, physical way I used to think was a metaphor, it turns me cold from the inside out to hear her say that. Everything except us, even the Silents by her side, recedes into black. "What? Oh, darling, when are you coming from? Did I confuse you? I only ever meant to be imaginary."

Don't smile. Oh God, River or whatever you are and real or fake, please, please don't smile at that.

She doesn't. At first I praise whatever beautiful grace is left within her, whatever might have happened. Then I remember that Soul's in there. Soul probably knew I was thinking that. Feeding River the information she needs to manipulate me, not that she ever needs any help with that. "Just give us back the girl," she says, "And we'll go."

Jessica, she means.

Who heard that, alright. And understood it clear as Dick and Jane. Clearer, anyway, than she understood the concept of 'clear as Dick and Jane', but that's another story. Jessica swiftly arms herself and steps up, standing at my shoulder. Not that she's hiding; she's making her alliance known. I'm proud of her, now, standing up for herself like that. It helps; I manage to summon back a degree of my usual courage and cool.

"Well, she's not exactly mine to give."

"She'll come if you tell her. Trust me. I was there."

That's a lie. Fed from Soul. That's a lie, targeted to hurt me and cause doubt. Because I am smart enough to see this, I will not fall for it. Oh, that's good theory. That is _solid gold_ theory.

Jessica looks to me. Neither believing nor disbelieving, but time-logic gives her a headache.

"No deal, River. I'm keeping her. She makes wonderful toast. Times it just right in between the settings."

She sighs. Opens her mouth to address the Silents with her. Possibly about to issue orders for imminent pain and death and kidnapping and all those horrible things that keep happening. She never gets a chance. Jessica is shoved out of the way, into the wall. And as I've mentioned before, she takes some shoving. Never would have thought Pond had it in her. Then again, she's rather annoyed.

"Melody Pond!" she shouts, standing square with her hands on her hips. Eye-drive or no, power suit or no, River flinches. "As your mother, I demand to speak to whatever just left my husband and took refuge with you. And _shame_ on you for harbouring it."

River, very quickly, under her breath, with fear in her uncovered eye, mutters a series of unrelated facts. 'Size seven' is one that I catch. 'B in Chemistry' is another. Then her eyes flash and she rolls her neck.

"Yeah," Soul says, perplexed, "Necks are really weird, _why_ am I only noticing this today? Who wanted me?" Pond raises her hand. This time it's just to show that she's the person in question, though. "I'll warn you first, try and hit me again and I _will_ jump out, and you _will_ technically be involved in child abuse."

"Oh, I don't care, I'm going to have words with her next, but I have questions for you."

"Amy, if it uses the words 'quid pro quo', just walk away."

"_Stay out of this, Doctor_." Spoken in such a way that I feel I have no choice. I step back and put Rory in front of me and just, sort of, _gesture_. Fix it. His wife, his problem; that's the way they've always treated River and I, certainly. He does nothing either, and Pond just keeps on digging. "How long have you been… _in_ Rory?"

"Since just after Stormcage. Never left the Tardis. I just rode along in the back of his head; I wasn't in control or anything."

Amy falters. "But… But that's weeks."

"There's this office in there, like a detective movie thing? I've been curled up in there drinking his bourbon, that's all… Oh! Oh, I see what you're getting at! Don't worry, darling, I'm sure you were wonderful. I was buried _deep_ in his fear of death for all that, far far away."

Rory leans forward, pointing, enraged, "_That's_ why I kept thinking about drowning!"

Soul cackles, sudden and bright, doubles River over with laughter, clapping like a seal. When she straightens, wiping the tears from her eyes, River shudders, shaking Soul off and snapping back in the focus. "Those are _still_ my parents. Stay in the back!" Somewhere since I last saw both of them, they've managed some kind of symbiosis, both of them present and conscious and aware of each other, but only one in control. This was the time I said I might start to fear Soul, very slightly. I'll consider that when I get time.

River is readjusting to herself. That still takes a second. After which we both realize the Silents around her are gone. Too busy watching Pond's altercation with Soul, which might have turned violent given another moment or two and I was contemplating just how I would be breaking that up, to have noticed them slipping away.

That's what I notice.

River notices something else entirely. That one eye goes wide and round.

"Where's Jessica? You _idiot_, where's Jessica?" Not behind me anymore, that's as much as I know. She knows that, looking at me. She knows if she waits any longer for an answer I'm going to say that out loud and probably annoy her deeply. "Soul, find her. Now."

Another little shudder, the faint echo in the air of, "TTFN, friends."

Soul can move faster than us. Through the cracks around doors and in at air vents and extractor fans. Soul can look everywhere while we avoid Attendants. Much as I'd like to stay and figure out _what_ is going on, all of a sudden I don't have time anymore.

"_Every_ time," I say, with one Pond's sleeve in either hand, "_Every_ time we meet she makes me older."

"Yeah, well-"

"Rory, you finish with 'That's marriage', and I'll punch you again."

"Understood."


	6. Chapter 6

"That was River," Pond states, as they follow me away.

"Yes," I confirm.

"And loads of Silents."

"Yes."

"And some _thing_ called Soul that's been hanging out in Rory for way too long."

"_Yes_, Pond, I was _there_."  
>"I'm just checking! It's <em>weird.<em>"

"Like necks," Rory murmurs. Little Soul leftover there. He's going to need to stop that, because that's going to make me feel guilty. Weeks. How could I not notice? Jessica is gone, but the presence and absence of Silents in the same space excuse me from that. But _Rory_, Rory and Soul were there the whole time.

Even without Soul, I think he knows I'm thinking that. At my back, he pulls Amy aside and holds onto her. The usual exchange of whispers, the 'I'm okay' followed by 'Okay'. You'd think the ninth or tenth time they did that they'd be having trouble believing it, but it never seems to lose efficacy.

I walk ahead to leave them to it.

And find five small smudges of blood on the wall.

I step back and put the scene together. There's a door, here, a normal door with no psychic lock. A quick glance inside and it's a cleaning cupboard. Which apparently nobody ever uses, but far be it from me to critique Housekeeping. But it's a small, dark corner, and it is, yes, where Jessica would hide.

From who, though? Not from Madame Song and her Tall People. She was ready to take every one of them on.

Down the hall, beneath one of the tarnished brass uplighters, another little set of smudges, four in an arc and one below. Too perfect a paw print to be unintentional.

Jessica hid. She was discovered, and somebody was able to drag her away. And Jessica grew out the tip of a stake and pierced the tips of her fingers. Left a trail for me.

"Ponds, all very touching, of course, but let's wrap this up later. We're needed."

Because we're chasing, the unknown attacker has to hide her again. It's not an easy thing to do. I've never investigated just how Jessica can be so impossibly strong relative to her size, but whoever has kidnapped her seems to be more than a match. There are craters in the walls where they've thrown each other about, and a bloody dent in the rim of one of the doors where she fought against being pulled in. It hasn't quite locked.

Rory's all for bursting on in, all Butch Cassidy and Steven Seagal and _tough_. Me, I'm happier to get a look first.

Because of the broken lock, the room inside is incomplete, stammering in and out like a damaged circuit. What manages to appear is as infinite as my beach was, a verdant green earth of woods and fields, blue sky and white clouds. Jessica leaning back against a tree or a wall, cradling a hit to the chest. Her attacker crouched in front of her, looking, for lack of a better word, nice. Shaped no more like he should have that strength than she is.

And when he speaks, it's with the same accent I heard through the wall before. Dread to think what happened to the poor Manager if this one's out and free.

"This is the world I used to live in," he tells her. "It's going to look like this again. This is where we're going, and when you return, so will all of this."

Jessica shakes her head. Characteristically, she's casting about for her exits. Assessing the unlocked door, she sees me.

We haven't been able to get her to speak, even with her hearing back. I've heard her voice, of course, but from the future, or through Soul. So, as far as I know, her first chronological word is, "Help."

Couldn't agree more. All this mad-person talk about sisters and trees, I'm not having any more of it. It's just the kind of thing that happens in the Tian Lu Quan, making it just the kind of thing I'm not putting up with anymore, so in we go, and I point quite definitely at the wild (probably-)Irishman and inform him, "I've heard her called by many names, but Baby Bio's not one of them." I pause to consider, "And no, it doesn't sound right either, so we're not starting that. Unhand her, if you would."

He turns. For the first time I see that he's actually carrying a sword, of sorts; like one of Jessica's broken stakes with a handle affixed. And I stop walking up to him, just in the interests of nobody getting hurt.

He stands ready to defend. Announces, "I am a Brother of the Ash. We have searched all worlds and all times for our sister, and-"

"I'm going to stop you there, actually."

"Why?" Pond cries in shock and dismay. "I like the big speechy bit. That's how we know what we're up against."

I sigh. "Brother of the Ash, we heard that bit, we'll look him up later."

"But I still like the speechy bit. Especially when they're all muscular and with swords and such-"  
>"<em>Amy<em>."

"You were a _Roman_ and it worked for you. Now it's somebody else's turn."

"Stop it! We're not listening to him! Rory, knock him out, please."

"_Me_? He's got a _sword_!"

I'm going to state the obvious and point out that we've been arguing about this for more than a few of our precious seconds. In the background, Jessica has been climbing up from the wall, dusting herself off. Touching the bruise on her collarbone again like she only just noticed it. Rolling her head around on her neck and watching us bicker, and now she groans, "For Christ's sake." She bounds up, one foot on the wall, and throws all of that considerable weight into the Brother of the Ash.

It would seem Soul's found us.

"No," he breathes, offended beyond the pain of it. "My sister…"

"Oh, grow up," Soul bites. Faster than it ever could have before, it fires forth a stake from Jessica's left arm through the Brother's right shoulder into the floor. Any effort the room was making to accommodate him gutters out like a candle, and leaves the room cheap and bare, and the blood dark on the carpet. Soul snaps it off and leaves him there.

The pain seems to be less to it now, but it still holds tight to the oozing forearm.

Soul shakes the effort out of Jessica and breathes. "That's my new trick. Now I can do what she can do." I pick up the Brother's sword and take one step towards it. Wounding worked last time and I can only hope it hasn't come that far. "Like this," Soul grins and shoots out a stake on the right. In this way and with this threat it is able to take Jessica and just walk her out of there.

"_Ooh_, Madame Song'll give me a body tonight, for sure! I'm going dancing!"

It box-steps Jessica in great, graceful circles around in front of the door. Tries to grab Rory up into the waltz, but he's not having it. It's led him enough of a dance already, and so he shoves it hard out into the corridor.

It takes Jessica's face, which even at the moments of my many imminent deaths had been so wonderfully pure, and turns it vicious.

"You should have learned in New Orleans," it spits, "Not to turn a girl down when she's more powerful than you are."

I see a moment too late what is about to happen. Soul stretches out and slams the door across. Damage or no, it gets it locked. I all but feel the bolts shooting home, I'm so close.

The voice comes back through the sealed wall. "I'll give you a clue what I'm locking it with," it says, "It's my heart's desire. Can you picture it, Doctor?"

"Doctor, _do_ something," Pond says, pushing me forward.

I agree with Pond, Doctor. Really. I mean you can stand there with your big moony idiot face staring into a door, or you can get your backside in gear. Yes, Doctor, come on. Pull your finger out. Get to _thinking_, don't just follow along like there's nothing to be done. Get a move on, press the turbo, shake a tail feather. For heaven's sake, Doctor, do _something_.


	7. Chapter 7

"'My heart's desire,'" Rory echoes. "Soul said that like you'd know."

I nod. "It told me, once. Out of River, on the Tardis." I'm stalling, and they know it. Yes, I know. I have no doubt whatever what Soul's heart's desire is. It described it most eloquently. Trouble is, can I picture it? Can I visualize that and bear the pain of sustaining it? "I'm sorry, I need a moment."

Amy takes me by the shoulder and turns me to her. "It has Jessica," she says.

I try to interrupt, "And I understand that, but-" _But_ she's having none of it.

"And it had Rory. It doesn't get all of us at once." It's in her eyes; every moment I delay I'm letting her down, all of us. Each of the Ponds places a hand on my back, and they do me the great honour of not asking me to describe what I have to believe in right now.

It's not the fact of imagining my death that disturbs me. There's nothing to that. I'm too old for all that to bother me any more, been there too many times. But the way Soul told me it will happen, the way it so intensely longs for, that's harder. It's the thought of River's hands around my throat, of dark Soul floating behind her eyes, fighting every moment for control, and keeping it. But the door doesn't unlock. Soul wants more from me.

It told me too that the moment of my death would be the moment immediately preceding River's. Jessica, misreading the situation, is to overreact, and take misguided revenge on River. It told me all this, and made me believe. Oh, but I don't want to see anymore, don't want to think anymore of this.

Not that moment either. No, it's the moment at which it all happens, and Soul leaves, and the air around all the hate and violence swells with absolute joy in a thousand shades of amethyst and gold, the thoughtless heart fulfilled, the disembodied Soul unchained.

The door opens when I break a heart. That's what it wanted of me. My eyes closed, my breath taken from me, choking, "I want to wake up now."

Rory is opening the door. Pond slips her arm under mine and bears me up. "Come along, Doctor."

_Right_, ladies and gentlemen, let's get going, let's kick it off and finish as strong as we started, let's make it count and laugh our way out at the end having done all we can. Let's leave our broken selves behind and just recover, let's forget. Let's get up running.

We don't get back as far as the last place we saw River. Halfway there, I hear her raging a hall or two away. Pass an Attendant, a little blackened, still smoking and still with his Silent standing over him. Oh well, moving swiftly on, keeping going, cooking on gas, River is at one more Tian Lu Quan room door. Going through the same banging and pleading I did earlier with the Ponds, and still being Madame Song so I'm allowed to enjoy her frustration.

"_Soul_!"

From within, "Oh, just once more round the floor, please."

"You _worthless_ little-"

"Language, darling," I interrupt. She steps away from the door, looking perfectly calm and collected all of a sudden. All for my benefit, of course. Well, she likes to impress me. Who could blame her, when you come down to it? "What appears to be the problem? Soul enjoying itself, is it?"

"It's dancing," she admits, begrudgingly.

"Well, just have one of your pale friends shock the system, that ought to switch things off."

"No need to overreact."

"Ah, now who is it you can't afford to hurt, Soul or Jessica?"

She's cagey at first, then smiles. It's not a nice smile, not a beach-smile, and yes, I'm thinking about making that a thing. Nice things are beach things. Nasty things are makes-me-think-of-Kovarian things. Need a snappier title for that if it's going to be a thing. "We need both. I think you know that, don't you, sweetie?"

Doesn't make sense. Why would River be involved in the conspiracy that brings about her death? But this isn't the time for that. Not thinking about that. Who wants to discuss the future anyway? In a way, the fake, imagined River I first met was right. Don't let's be grown-ups. Don't let's have serious-face conversations. Let's just go back to the sea, eh? Somewhere where the sun comes out.

So I step up to the door, and rap more politely than she did.

"Doctor, what are you _doing_, why are we _helping_ her?" Rory balks. I like Rory, you know, he has a much healthier attitude towards River's various modes and insanities. Much more willing to accept her potential for future evil than Mummy Bear. Doesn't mean he loves her any less than Amy, just that he's a bit more grounded.

"Because though we only need one of them, the two are coming as a package at the moment. Oh, Soul? Soul, dear? Whatever little corner of your mind isn't lost in the light fantastic and body electric and scaramouche fandango, for God's sake, don't let it think of pink elephants."

A long, dead moment. Then a scream, "Oh, Christ, Christ, there isn't room! Make it stop! Jesus Christ, I'll be trampled to death!"

"Killer bees neither, by _no_ means think of killer bees, dear Soul."

Nothing quite so articulate this time; the whap of flailing arms and muffled whimpers, the yelps of imaginary stings. Then, "Let-me-out-let-me-out-let-me-out, Oh God!" and on this last inflamed cry, the Soul Jessica falls back through the door into the hallway. A while longer, it is still flapping at the bees, cowering away from the impossibly huge feet of pink elephants. Then it realizes and glares at me. "I've told you before I'm going to kill you, haven't I? We've been through that?"

"We have, thank you."

"Well played, my love," River smiles. Then, with a nod of her head, she gathers her Silents about her. I'm not sure where they come from. I'm sure they've been about and I've just been doing silly things like blinking and turning my head. One of them still smells like charred Attendant. I can see River wrinkling her nose, before she steps forward to help Soul up from the floor. "Pull another stunt like that and we'll see about you ever dancing again. We could stick you in a three-legged Friesian and see how you felt about it."

She passes it over to the Silents. Looking for all the world like she's passing Jessica over. Taking her away.

Then comes to me, "Goodbye, my love, 'til next time. Please don't think of this as a loss. I'm just sparing you the decision. Keeping the road nice and straight for you."

I could question that. Things there I could pick up on and press, answers it might do me good to hear. I am, instead, taking the sonic from my pocket. River rolls her eyes. "That's your answer to everything. What's it for this time?"

Leaning around her, I look past the wispy black Soul in Jessica's eyes and say, "I know you're still in there, and I'm sorry."

There is a frequency, a pitch exactly midway between a dog whistle and the reverberation of the largest bell at Notre Dame, which is exactly strong enough to penetrate a human skull, and exactly weak enough to punch through the other side. It traps inside the skull and echoes a few billion times a second, leaving great black holes in the cognitive faculties and brilliant white blooms on the end of every nerve. A migraine, essentially. Gone mad. Soul falls to Jessica's knees, clutching her head.

"No!" River barks. "Hold that body, Soul!"

"I'd hop out, if I were you, Soul."

"So help me, I will give you feet for the pleasure of cutting them off!"

"She doesn't mean that, she needs you. Out you come, Soul." River lunges at me, grabbing for the sonic. Rory intervenes, grabbing both arms back behind her. The Silents step forward, the familiar dark hum of electricity, and the lights aren't guttering because they need rewired anymore. "Oh, I wouldn't, if I were you lot. You don't want the whole Tian Lu Quan channelling this noise. Large as your heads are, that's just more space to echo. And who knows, that kind of space, you might just pop. Like _balloons_."

River's not even listening in, screaming at Soul, "Hold – that – shell!"

"Nah," Soul manages, shaking Jessica's head. I push Amy in front of me so she'll be ready to lift her. "Nah, Madame Song, I'm not paid enough for this." The next sentence comes out of the air, "Not paid at all, actually," spoken in total calm and pain-free.

I nudge Amy. She pulls Jessica up and back to us. Rory releases River before those Silents can overreact. Soul, I know, is probably about to jump right back into Jessica. I'm ready with the sonic again, just in case. Jessica seems capable, though; even in her recovery, she feels it coming, shoots a stake down short over her fingers, and holds it to the side of her neck. It shocks the Ponds, of course, but she and I both know exactly what she's doing.

River gives up, with the same reptilian smile, the same raising of the hands, the same bad makes-me-think-of-Kovarian things.

Really need a better name for that.

"Alright, my love, you win. Soul, hop back in here, please. We'll see about you later."

"Ponds," I announce, "Escape plan beta."

No response. Then, from Rory, "Beta?"

"Yes. As in the nice way of saying B."

"And Plan B is?"  
>"Same as it always is. Run like blazes."<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

Ah, running; a fast exit, and good for you too. It has, usually, only one problem, in that when one is running very quickly indeed one has a tendency to run into things, especially in an enclosed space such as the Tian Lu Quan. Which brings me neatly to the new and rather-situation specific problem, which is that the things one runs into here are not necessarily _actually_ here.

For instance, that Silent we could have run into, he was real. That exit door, with the glowing green sign that said 'Exit', that was just what Rory really, really wanted to see when he got that stitch. Poor boy, it's spreading; it's just been his head until now.

It tries again to get into mine, actually. 'Size twelve', I find myself thinking, then, 'No dice, dear Soul, get-Princess-and-the-Frog-_out_, please.' Thinking pink elephants and blue camels and jellyfish with hats on and strawberries with eyebrows and it goes.

A faint hum in the air of it singing, '_In heaven, everything is fine_.' Off to report on our whereabouts, more than likely, fading into the distance, '_You've got your good things, and I've got mine_…'

And as we turn another corner, there is an Attendant making his lazy, zombie-like way towards us. No, not zombies, not thinking about those, not after last time and not in this place. 'Slow, shuffling way towards us,' that'll do.

"Anybody really scared of Attendants?" I say.

"I'm still not clear on what an Attendant is, actually," Pond says.

"Well, we'll be out of here soon and they shouldn't come up again, so…"

Rory cuts in, "Am I wrong or is he lumbering over here to kill us?"

"That, or to put us back in our rooms," I tell him. "We should probably be moving very quickly in another direction."

"Which direction, though? That's the question." This from Pond, in a quiet, thoughtful tone. That's the great thing about these slow, uncaring villains; you have time to get your thoughts together. "Nobody's really, really scared of getting lost in an unfamiliar place where you might end up letting yourself wither and die?"

Rory and I, in unison, "Yes."

More so since I can hear seagulls again, but I don't say that out loud.

And my mind is racing, possible exits, things I could do, tracking the Attendant back to the Concierge, trying to somehow retrace the signal of the false River from before, the nice false River, not the mad one. Maybe even letting the mad one pull us out and then escaping from _her_ rather than this place. Oh yes, plans, plans on top of plans, plans aplenty, scenarios a-go-go. It's just coming up with one that might actually work. Common enough as a problem.

It doesn't usually hurt.

No, the odd stinging sensation, the hot tingle in one's left cheek, that's definitely an anomalous symptom of this occasional uselessness of mine.

Never heard voices before. Especially not angry ones threatening that, should they lift up one of these stones, real or not, I'm still going to feel it.

Yes. It just won't be wet, is all.

Voice says, "You are _not_ this far gone, damn you!" And then my other cheek starts to hurt.

Seagulls. And salt smell. Soft, warm sand that can run through my fingers, grain for grain, I _feel_ it. Feel too the hard, worn carpet of the hallway, and I'm standing in that same dim light. It's just that the Attendant's not there anymore. He must have gone away, or I thought of something finally. The Ponds are still here, though.

Just not moving or talking.

And I can hear the ocean.

It dawns on me what must be happening. This is Tian Lu Quan security, trying to take me back by force. I close my eyes to concentrate, say it right out loud to make it real, "Not River. Stop thinking about River. Not supposed to be thinking about-"

It's not a sting this time, it's a hot, blooming crater in the side of my face, and the despairing cry, "Oh, you _idiot_ man!"

That's her. That's her, and _too_ her not to be her. My mind would not allow River to say such a thing, if she was to be all of my creation. My River, as I recall, wasn't that much fun. This is not a River built by me, or even by Kovarian. Real and perfect. So I think of her, very hard, in her realness and perfection. Every last scar and beautiful blemish. The scratches, as it were, and acid burns and grease stains. Not the best comparison, I'll agree, but you see what I'm getting at. Searching, reaching out, not for the perfect, but for the real. For both, really.

The real and the perfect reaches back and takes my hand.

Says, "About bloody time!"

For the voice of my love is as the call of the ocean unto the shore, so sweet and irresistible, requesting nothing it does not repay in kind. I'm afraid even to open my eyes, but I can feel the full warm sunshine on the lids and know that I'm safe.

"Which one are you?" I ask the River I find.

"The _real_ one," she says, through gritted teeth. "Now get up. We have to get you out of here; you're needed."

"What's the rush?" I pull her down next to me on the sand. At first she struggles, then gives up and cradles her head in her hands. Don't really know what her problem is. We have everything here we could want. And it doesn't have to be forever. Just a long, lazy afternoon, that's all it would take. All the dark and hard things that wait for us will do just that and _wait_. This one little break, and we can go back and face it all refreshed. She'll understand that. "Lie with me," I tell her. Very briefly, her eyes flutter closed. She's so close I can feel her breathing.

Then she shakes her head, climbs back to her feet and kicks sand at me. "Wake up! Tian Lu Quan!"

"No, no, this is where it started from before, so this is the real part. Don't worry about it, the Tardis is… around here… somewhere…"

"Beg to differ, sweetie. It's actually on the roof, about to be stolen."

"River, nobody can fly her except you and me. Now calm down and… is there an ice cream van? Have you seen an ice cream van anywhere?" And as if by magic, so sweet, that little tinkling bell noise of Greensleeves. "I wrote that, you know." River is far too stressed out. We'll get ice cream, we'll act like big kids, she'll relax. We'll get her sorted, you see if we don't. She's pacing now, in the sand at my feet, like a thing caged. "Honestly, darling, you're doing yourself _no_ favours. If you'd just lived the madness I just put myself through, you might have a reason, but you're just taking years off your one sole and single remaining life-"

Hm. Note to self; notion of her own mortality works wonders with River.

She falls on me from right where she stands. All passionate and forthright and that. Takes me rather by surprise at first, but it's not taking much getting used to.

Only then she gets up. With the sonic in her hand and not in my inside pocket.

I just feel so _used_ and a bit cheap. I'd like to call her on it, only she seems to know what she's doing with it, and now I'm scared.

"I'm sorry, my love," she says, and points it right at me. A fraction of a second later, round about the time I find the breath to scream, she realizes she got the frequency wrong. "I _said_ I was sorry!"

"That's not the headache setting, that's the makes-your-ears-bleed setting!"

"Yeah, that needs a better name."

"Well, technically it's the recorded cry of the Krillitane queen in labour, but I'm thinking of calling it the River setting, what do you think?"

"I think it's nice to have you back."

Oh. Beach is gone again. Tian Lu Quan hotel room number one, all over again. Blue walls, here in the real world. I imagined it wrong. Blue walls and green carpet. Very bad taste, you know. "Now," says River, "You're late to stop me stealing the Tardis."

It smells in here.

"I miss the beach," I tell her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she says, ushering me out the door. "Me too, but there are more important things going on. Now, where are you coming from? Actually, quicker question, how shocked would you be if I were to show up with an eye drive on?"

"Less than I want to and more than you seem to think."

"Don't worry, it's the best idea you'll ever have, but watch out for Soul. Soul will know if anybody's faking, so don't fake."

"Don't fake what?"

"Good boy." I won't lie to you, I haven't a clue what she's on about, where she came from, where we stand at all. River can sense that. "Look, just do what you'd normally do. Now, anything you want to check? Anything that came out in your room you're not sure about?"

"Pardon?"

I'm following her, blindly, because River seems to know where she's going. Again, I could be lost. I could be following nothing again. She's about to answer me, but somehow, confirming that she's really here is more important. I reach out and pull her back by the hand, take hold of her and kiss her again. When I pull away, I trace her lower lip with the tip of one finger. It comes away damp. Really, truly, sensationally-in-both-senses damp.

"Satisfied?" River says.

I'm ready now. I'm prepared. I miss the beach, but that's not real and this is. "That's another question for another time. Where do we stand on Rory and Soul?"

"I knew you suspected that."

"_I_ didn't. I'm so smart even I don't follow half the time."

"Yes, that's what happened. You thought you got rid out of it, out of Jessica? It just hopped to Daddy. He was it's first contact, actually, on the Tardis."

"How?"

"The detective story, remember? The one thing the thief got away with was what he stole from my father." The program _she_ installed, but we tried to have that fight before and she talked me out of it, and at any rate there isn't time. "Soul has everything, and it's been hanging around in him long enough to know my mother."

"Oh, so basically _fear_ Soul, then."

"For now, but you'll figure that out."

"What about Jessica? There was somebody after her too…" It's fading like a dream, the farther we get from the room. The Tian Lu Quan isn't reading me anymore. The events of the last hour or more are dying and the world is cold and not quite so comfortable. The hotel did itself up a bit, when it was projected for me; here in the real world the walls are cracked and patchy and the ceilings drip and it stinks to high heaven.

I'd never admit it, and don't you dare tell anybody, but I want to go back.

"The Brother of the Ash," says River, either oblivious to or ignoring my distress. "You should pay attention to him. Did the room give you that? You suspected that?"

"Not a clue."

"The Tian Lu Quan can't give you anything that isn't already in your mind."

"Then I suppose I must have, why have we stopped?"

"Because this, my love," and she presents it to me with the open hands and beaming smile of a game show hostess, "is a door."

"And I'm going through there, am I?"

"If you want to save your Tardis, save my parents, save the girl-"

"-Which girl, though?-"

"-Doesn't matter, then yes, yes, you are."

"And you're not coming?"

"No, I'm already there."

Already there, but from a future I don't understand, and don't understand how any of it could be a good thing, and she's leaving me here. She's putting me through this door and then I'm alone for the end. She's walking away to leave me here and I take her hand and tell her, "Stay."

"In the future perfect," she tells me back.

Actions to be completed by a known point farther along the timeline. She's been there, I suppose, so she ought to know. Still it's hard to see beyond the perfect leaving me at the mercy of the future.


	9. Chapter 9

Oh yes, quite right, love, shove me out here into this shambolic debacle. Don't you bother helping out. Disappear, why don't you, in a waft of perfume and an echo of "Spoilers," don't you worry yourself a bit, darling.

And you over there too, same only different. Put down those Silents and we'll dance, you and I. That ought to please everybody. Then again, Soul's about somewhere. Don't want it getting all excited.

Sorry, allow me to begin again. First, in the interests of clarity, I shall describe to you just what it is I've walked into.

We shall refer to this odd River, in the interests of clarity, as Madame Song.

In the interests of making me feel better we could refer to Soul as something else, but we shan't, being ladies and gentlemen of taste and erudition. We'll stick to Soul.

The Tardis is at some short distance from me at the door. Madame Song and her Silents (not a band, good band name, but not a band) are much closer to it than I am. Planning on stealing it, if I'm to believe her former self. Don't blame her, the old girl's a beautiful and extraordinary machine, and they'd make a good match, but the fact is she can't have it. It is on behalf of my blue beloved that I fear the word 'divorce'.

I should also point out, it is that strange combination of Kraftwerk and Jefferson Airplane that are currently in possession of Jessica. Who isn't fighting, so I'll presume Soul's in there.

They were delayed in this act of grossly indecent larceny, apparently, by the arrival of the Ponds, who I imagine made a bit of a fuss but ultimately proved useless, otherwise I wouldn't need to be here.

Oh, and the Brother of the Ash is here. It doesn't seem Soul got him so badly as I imagined. He's had a few kicks and scratches, but I'm willing to bet that was Jessica herself.

Because I've just entered, each and every one of these disparate, warring parties is looking directly at me.

"Hello."

Pond turns her back on Madame Song and mouths at me, "Where were you? Where have you been? What took you so long?", and other similar things I start ignoring after a moment.

I look at Madame Song instead and give her my best nearly-laughing smile. Pointing at the Tardis, "You can't get in!"

"You changed the locks."

"Look at yourself, darling and tell me you blame me."

"Don't be so cruel."

"Get Soul out of Jessica and hand her over."

Please don't think I believe that'll work. I just believe in giving people a fair chance when you're in standoff with two heavily armed groups and still barely have a clue where you are, yourself. Call me old-fashioned if you must.

Surprising thing is, it _does_ work. After a fashion. Madame Song turns her head to the Soul Jessica by her side and says, "Well? You heard him. Hand the shell over and then vacate." Before I can interrupt and tell her that's not _quite_ what I said, Soul nods politely. Then turns a few last ballet steps, en pointe and without a thought for poor Jessica's ankles in the morning, crossing in pirouette, not to me, but to the Brother of the Ash. "Top of the morning, sir," she grins. "I'm all yours." And falls into his arms.

Not quite what I had in mind, at all. But Jessica can take him. I've seen that, and I know it. So Soul can get out and then Jessica can-

No. No, because the Brother, the brother speaks out very loudly, "A demon possesses my Sister." Which is true, so far as it goes, but the ritual bloodletting from the temples is really rather unnecessary. It drives Soul out, but Jessica panics as she comes around and is rendered basically useless.

I'm losing, aren't I?

This is what you get, River, this is what happens when you leave me to it and I haven't a clue. Stop telling me that I'll know what to do because, charming and all as your faith may be, it's swift becoming clear I don't deserve it. I'm losing.

I'm losing because when Soul leaves Jessica, I immediately hear Amy breath out, "Size six."

"No! Pond, _stop_ that at _once_!" I grab her by the shoulders, shake her, but she's disappearing, being drawn back into herself and leaving the stage, as it were, empty. "Pond, don't look now, but there's a pelican behind you."

"_Alice in Wonderland_," she breathes, and sinks back. Out of dark and cloudy eyes, Soul smiles, "Oh, fool me once, Doctor." I try to hold onto her, but Soul plants Amy's elbow in my ribs so hard I don't just let go but almost fall. I keep it to one knee. That leaves a scrap of dignity, doesn't it? I can feel one hanging around the back there. Yes, best hold onto that.

Soul and Madame Song are arguing the pros and cons, respectively, of Soul holding onto Amy as a shell. It's all wrong. You wake up and the nightmare ends, that's how it works, you don't just start over again at the worst possible peak.

I'm losing. Why am I losing?

But it will all work out fine. It has to. The other River, the real one, the one that hit me until I came to on the beach, said so. Or implied, anyway, in the course of our brief conversation, that this one-eyed version of that particular Rubik's cube, is on side. At least, I hope that's what she was implying. Notice, if you will, how with every evolution of that thought I get farther and farther from everything turning out fine.

The Brother of the Ash is trying to set a very crude old vortex manipulator. Jessica, thankfully, has begun struggling, and is making it rather difficult for him, but he's getting there. Soul, once more, is trying to drag Rory into its dancing, explaining that it feels close to him, after being part of him so long and currently, technically, being his wife. Still singing its little song, '_In heaven, everything is fine,'_ and drawing him close and slow. One hand straying just that little bit too far into wife-owned territory. For a moment I'm afraid he's going to try and slap it, and it'll jump out of Amy and leave them to it. I see it coming, and thankfully so does he.

I also see Silents starting to gather electricity up from the dodgy wiring below. I'd like to see them all electrocuted for playing with ill-managed energy, but I've got a nasty feeling they might enjoy that.

I see something else, as well.

What else, you cry?

Madame Song's hand. The fingers of it all splayed out and separate, down below the notice of her entourage. Folding in, one at a time.

Five, four, three, two-

Greensleeves. A tinny, metallic version of ice cream van bells, from a tiny speaker somewhere.

The sound stops the living hell around me in a dead moment. Except Jessica, who is still struggling with the Brother in the corner of my eye. All of us waiting to see where it comes from. Even Madame Song waiting a moment. Soul rolls Amy's eyes and turns to her, "That's you, love."

"Hm? Oh, so it is." From one of the tiny pockets of her neat little jacket (which suits her, though I'd never ever tell her so), she produces an equally tiny, equally black little phone and studies it, half interested. "What have we said about how you address me, Soul?" she goes on, apparently unconcerned."

"Sorry, it's the head that I'm in. She's strong, your mum. Who is it?"

"Head office."

Not from any desire to change my service provider, but because I can bear no more of that surreal chat between, by all appearances, River and Amy, "Oh, River, River, _please_, open unto me all the secrets of the universe and tell me what network gets galactic reception."

She raises an eyebrow as she raises the phone to answer. Where any other River in any other lifetime would toss off a quick 'Spoilers' to irritate the living daylights out of me, Madame Song just smiles. "Hello?" Very suddenly her face straightens out entirely. "We're on our way," and hangs up. "Soul, drop Mummy and get over here."

"But I'm not-!"

"_Now_! This is it, this is the beginning of it. They're breaking the encryption on the Keep-…" And she pauses, looks pointedly at me. She's said something too much and I'm supposed to get it. "On the material," she finishes for Soul. "Now get back over here and lets go."

"What about the Tardis, though?"

"_Forget it_!" Soul stands, pursing Amy's lips, her arms folded, looking like it might be willing to stay and sulk a while. "Do you want to kill him or not?" Madame Song says, and indicates me with a nod. And I'm standing right here, after all, there's no need for all this 'him' business, she could address me when she's discussing my murder.

"Well, when you put it like that." Soul falls out of Amy, leaving her in Rory's arms. Where she's been all this time. Keeping him busy, defending his wife as best he could. And me, standing here, doing much the same.

Neither of us thinking, until the little voice croaks out again from behind us, "Doctor, help. Rorypond helps it."

And now, which is also stupid of us, we all turn. The Brother of the Ash got the better of Jessica, got his blade across her throat so she didn't know how to move. And while we all stand and watch they stutter out of being here, gone away into nothing.

Then, in all the air around us, the trace of Soul's voice, not so much a sound as knowing that it has spoken, "Arrivaderci, friends."

And we all turn just as stupidly back to watch Madame Song activate her transmatter disc, and she and Soul and all the Silents follow Jessica into the unknown.

"Doctor, what just happened?"

This from Amy. Who could be referring to what literally just happened or the time she had Soul banging about in her head, because people don't always remember. The words, 'We lost', are all but spoken. All but.

No. Not yet.


	10. Chapter 10

"No," I tell them, "We're not beaten yet."

"But everybody disappeared," Rory says. Something simple and sad about that. You think he'd know better than to make me think of Jessica when I'm trying to be objective about this. "How are we _not_ beaten?" Ah, there's the old no-good-at-sarcasm… I really do need better names for all these things. "How does this _not_ count as pretty well trashed, Doctor?"  
>"Because anything disappearing into time and space requires a massive amount of energy and that amount of energy can't happen without leaving a mark, a little scar on the face of the vortex and, like pretty much any scar, while that's fresh you can tell what made it and where it went. Now shut up, I'm thinking."<p>

"Because it's way too easy to just say you can trace them."

"Yes. Also that would have been a tiny bit of a lie, because I can't trace _them_. The whole process takes a minute or two and the signals are fading out very, very quickly and as we _speak_. I can trace _one_ of them. Now shut up, I'm thinking."

"Which one?" Amy wants to know.

"That is what I would be _thinking_ about if everybody would just _shut up_."

Things to consider include what I've been told, what I know, the path I'm on and all predictions appertaining to it. This latter, before you all start on me, is nothing to do with my own personal feelings about it. I'm being objective. But the fact is Soul was in Rory, Soul was there, Soul has heard that prediction and they'll be playing off it.

What I've been know. Madame Song let a little something slide there. Spoiled rotten, I am. Her little slip of the tongue was no accident, she's too smart for that, too controlled. I reach back in my mind for the exact words. An encryption was about to be broken.

"On the Keep…"

"The Keeper," I tell myself out loud, confirming it, feeling the trace of the next syllable on my lips and comparing it with hers in my memory. "Yes, yes, the Keeper."

The Ponds look at each other, shake their heads, "Who?"

"The Keeper. Don't ask, started all this, ask Scone, he was there, Scone's dead, tell you later, but _yes_, yes, the Keeper. Encryption being broken on the Keeper's… The Keeper died trying to pass information to me-"

"Somebody's dead?" Pond balks, holding tighter to Rory.

"-And that information was stolen from her at the time of the murder before I arrived. That's it, that's what they're working on."

"Well, what kind of information?" Rory asks.

"Not a _clue_. But then again, there's what I've been _told_ to consider. Like River, before, just now, she told me something." Oh yes, this out-loud thing is much easier. If one just pretends their questions aren't really questions but the required springboards of advanced thought, one can get along very well.

"Eye-patch River?" Rory balks, and in a small and almost automatic way, Amy informs him that it's not an eye patch.

"No, the other River, the nice one, she saved me, again, long story, tell you later, but _yes_, yes, she told me something. Said that I should be paying more attention to the Brother of the Ash."

Oh, it's not helping any more. I'm confused, and worse than that torn. For instance, I know neither where nor when Jessica has been taken, but once I look up the wild man and his Brethren, I've probably got a good chance at guessing. I don't know _when_ River's popped off too, but I've got a pretty good shot at finding out where and I have rather a landmark to look for if indeed the Keeper's code is about to be broken.

Third factor; path and associated predictions. Again, I reach back for the precise wording, then remember I have it recorded. Play it back for myself.

"What is that?" Amy asks, rushing up to listen.

Rory tells her, "Marie Laveau told his future." We both turn and he turns sheepish, looks at his feet. "Yeah, Soul wanted to listen in, I think."

"You mean you listened in and Soul was there, but no matter now."

Marie, from hundreds of years ago and the top of the sonic, says again that there will be two more forks in my path. At the first I will turn towards the water, towards the tree at the second, and then I will come to the end. I turn it off before she describes the ending to me. That's not for either Pond, and even Soul didn't hear that part, because I've never played it back. I'm not listening to it. It's not coming. That's not going to happen. It's not.

The water and the tree. The River and the Ash. Has to be. Sorry, Marie, but it doesn't go how you said. I don't live through that.

The Silence are aware of what Marie said. They know I am supposed to go after River. Now, the straight, normal, single bluff, would mean calling them out and running for Jessica. But they know I'm not that stupid, just to do the opposite because they say so. No, they'll be expecting me to pay no mind to Marie, to double-bluff and chase after River, and that's fine, that's a good plan, but there's one thing the Silence haven't counted on.

I'm not half so stupid as they think I am.

I'm _twice_ as stupid.

I turn towards the place where Jessica disappeared, the sonic grabs a time signature and I rush to the Tardis to get these last remnants traced.

"But Doctor, what about River?" Pond cries, running after me.

I can't be unkind to her. This is the second time I've done this, in her eyes. "Amy," I begin. I take her face in one hand even while typing with the other, and I try to be comforting with one eye on the monitor. "Amy, it seems unfair, but the River you saw here, the mad one, Eye-patch-it's-not-an-eye-patch River, that's a future version. We can't help her better than by keeping that from ever happening."

She's coming round to that, I think. She begins to nod. The moment dies when her husband, standing in the open doorway, laughs in a quiet and inane way that has to be questioned.

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing, really. Just Marie was right."

"What? What? No. No. _No_, Marie was wrong, Marie was very, very wrong, all the shades of wrong and they are many, those shades, as many as the shades of the sea is as wrong as Marie was, what are you talking about Marie was right?"

I am, by this time, as his shoulder and rather out of breath. That's what the inhalation is, by the way. It's not a gasp, I'm just out of breath.

Behind the place from which the Brother stole Jessica, a broken gutter drops a steady trickle into a puddle below. I turned towards the water. And at my back, at the place where River vanished, climbing vines reaching over the edge of the roof pile up on themselves and snake around in vines and branches, and are to all intents and purposes a tree. From which I turned away.

Very quickly, and in a surreptitious way so as not to panic the Ponds, I try for any trace of River's signal.

There's nothing.

Sick to the pit of my stomach and sorry from the bottom of my heart and all those other strange little phrases humans apply to their bodies. Primarily the sick and the sorry, though.

You came to save me and I have very possibly refused to do the same. Been too stupid and too panicked to look at it properly, to interpret the proper signs. You must have known you'd need me there, eye-patch or none, and now Heaven alone knows how far from you I'm going, and how much farther down the path that ends with you and I both darkened and dead and for _what_? Because I couldn't take a second. One extra second to look at it all again. How many billions of seconds have I traded off for the sake of that one?

Sick, as I said, and so wholly and eternally sorry.

"Doctor?" Rory says. The stupid bloody smile's gone off him now alright, and I can't find it in myself to say something cheerful back to him. "Doctor, what's the matter?"

And from up at the console, where she's missed all this, Amy is watching the monitor and cries excitedly, helpfully, "Doctor, she's got something. Accurate to within three months, it says."

A lock on Jessica.

Well, I suppose she was going to need rescued sooner or later.

So I steel myself, swallow the lump in my throat, clap my hands and turn back to them. "Right! Mr Pond, door closed, please. Anybody need an emergency exit demonstration? No? Good, there are none anyway. And off we go, we merry band, to rescue a damsel from… _Amy_?"

Reading slowly, sounding out the syllables, "Tir-in-na-noc?"

"From a land, lady and gentleman, of myth and legend and wild Celtic types! Rory, keep an eye on her. They love a ginger and she loves them in a skirt. All doors are now locked, please hold on very tightly to something for take-off and landing, the two of which ought to follow hard upon each other."

Why the big show?

Because they smile.

Taking care of the people I care about, remember? Most of them anyway.

The usual rattle and ker-thunk of takeoff, and Pond giggles like it's new to her. Humans like fun. They don't make it easy to forget either, the dear sweet things. Fun, then. Don't let's be grown-ups today. Shake off sorry and fight through sickness, and don't let's have serious-face conversations today.

Another day, though.

And if you see her, tell her I was asking about her. Tell her that I'm coming. And she will tell you, because I will make sure of it, that I have been there and gone.

[And so we came to the end. I'm popping off to have, you know, Christmas and family and television and chocolate and presents, so consider this my season hiatus. I promise, though, I'll be back before you've gotten through your selection boxes (depending, once more, on your desire to ever see me again). Keep an eye out for the next preview if you're looking for me. And you all know how I am, I just can't stay away – who knows what nice little girls and boys who let the author know where she stands might find in their stockings? (I would never full-on troll for reviews. You like it or you don't, that's good enough for me.) Merry Christmas to all, should I not see nor hear from you, and to all, many thanks.

Hearts, Sal.]


	11. The Legend In The Concrete' Preview

Ah, Tirinnanoc, a mystic land of verdant beauty, a place and a people entirely symbiotic. The Tir have the same DNA as their trees, just put together differently. Been quiet for a few thousand years, though, haven't heard much from them. A peaceful, benevolent people, and why wouldn't they be? They live in an edenic paradise, wanting for nothing, a world of youth and beauty, free of sickness and death, the font of all earthly pleasure.

I like saying things like that to the Ponds, they get all excited. Haven't been around as long as I have, you see; the idea of peaceful paradise where nothing ever goes wrong still seems like a good thing to them. But things go so much smoother when they're happy. So I fling open the doors and present to them…

Contemporary Dublin, apparently.

"Um… Pardon us, small, technical glitch… We'll be arriving at our real destination very very shortly."

But when I check the co-ordinates at the monitor, they still say Tirinnanoc. So I try again.

Still Dublin. Different view this time. Funny feeling I might have parked on top of the Guinness Storehouse. Please don't ask me why I would recognize that view. It wasn't my idea and it didn't end well for Jack either. It was three millennia and six hospitals later we finally got him fixed.

"Um…"

Back to the monitor again. This time, out of interest, I place the two sets of coordinates side-by-side – Tirinnanoc, in the time Jessica disappeared to, and Dublin, somewhere in the twenty-teens.

Identical.

I try changing the times, and the coordinates remain identical. Tirinnanoc at the dawn of time and Dublin on the day that Earth burns up, exactly the same.

"I've never been to Dublin," Pond is saying. "Dublin's supposed to be fun."

"It is. Great fun. James Joyce is a laugh. You wouldn't expect it after _Finnegan's Wake_, but that man knows how to have a good time. Pity he keeps walking into things…"

"No, but what I mean is-"

"Pond, what is, to use a rather militaristic parlance, our current objective?"

"What?"

"What are we here for?" Rory fills in. Good old Roman. He's a machine, he is, deep down. Not literally, of course, not like that other time when he actually was a machine, I just meant in a vaguely complimentary way about all that old training in his head and I'm just digging a hole here, aren't I…

"Oh," Pond says. "Because Jessica got kidnapped."

"And where is Jessica?"

"Tirinnanoc."

"Precisely. So I'll figure out this little spatial kink in the universal map, and then at a later date we'll come back and we'll have a St Patrick's day with James Joyce, now how does that sound?"

"Fair," she says, and closes the door so I can try one more variation.

This time, my dear, befuddled old girl brings us out on the crenulated upper parapet of the Record Tower at Dublin Castle. So I ensure the Ponds are busy taking in the view, lift the typewriter up a bit and ask as fast as I can type, "So we're not landing at Tirinnanoc then?"

The monitor gives back her one word answer, "No."

"Dublin it is, then. We'll have words later, you and I, Sexy."

"What did you say?"

That was Rory. He's standing next to me. Somehow, Rory is at my shoulder. How and when exactly that happened I do not know. I try ignoring him, and lean around the console, "Pond, shut the door, we're not parking here. For one there's no way down."

Doesn't work. Rory grins. "What did you just call the Tardis?"

"Now, listen you, that's between me and her and you'd do well to leave it alone, do you understand me?

"Oh," he says, with a rich and false pretence of stoicism and manliness, one hand over his heart, "I'll keep that with me 'til I die." He keeps smirking at me the entire time I'm moving us over to Trinity College. There's a nice little corner on the quad where no one's going to look at us. And all that time I try to stare him down, which isn't that easy when the landing's a bit bumpy because you're staring somebody down rather than concentrating on flying. "No, really," he says, in the silence afterward, "I think it's really sweet."

"Doctor?" Pond is calling, from the door. But there isn't really time for her right now, because Rory's still smirking.

"Mr Pond, I only ask you to consider what might happen if the information now in your possession were ever to find its way, by any means, to your daughter. Not just to her, but to me, and very possibly to the Tardis."

The smirk goes. His face goes a little bit blank, contemplating some distant horror in the back of his mind.

"_Doctor_."

But no time for Pond because it's time to drive the nail home with her husband. "Yes, _exactly_. So just think about that."

"Doctor, there's a big blue tree in the middle of Trinity College."

And just like that I'm down the stairs. "Oh, Pond, why didn't you say so?"

There's more than a big blue tree. There's a skyscraper of a big blue tree with white leaves, white shrubbery, amber and scarlet flowers, a clear spring bursting out of the ground and great silvery flowers like daffodils up to your eyeballs.

There's a whole big blue garden in the middle of Trinity College.

We're not the only ones to have noticed either. The garden heaves with students and hippies, tourists and artists, and not one nor two but _four_ whole groups of nuns. Gaggles? Flocks? What's the group noun for nuns? A disapproval? A _tutting_, yes, a _tutting_ of nuns.

That's probably not the answer, but it works for me.

The Ponds slip out around me and into the crowd, all entranced by the one sight.

This time making doubly sure that nobody is watching, I start to pull the Tardis door closed behind me. And just where I would have to step out, I lean to the side and kiss the edge of it. "Clever old girl."

[Hey! Thought I'd tag this on the end of Future Perfect, bring it back to the top. Think of it as catch-up TV! Look, I have _no_ story stats this week due to this site being what it is and the calendar changing, so I won't know you're here unless you shout. There's gonna be trees and warriors and me trampling all over Irish mythology perhaps even a word or two from a Pond or two, and I hope you'll be with me. Hugs – Sal.]


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